Thursday, June 13, 2013

May the Free Fiction Be With You!

Today's free fiction is highlighted by the latest issue of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, a new novelette at Tor.com (hate to see what the word "porn" in the title does to my Google ads), and several continuing serialized stories, including one by D&D legend Ed Greenwood. There are also many e-books and flash fiction stories of interest. And as always check out "My Blog List" and "Free Fiction Sites" especially SF Signal's free fiction links by the always cool, Nixon Dogruns Regan Wolfrom for more free fiction pointers.

[Art for Episode 8 of The Land That Time Forgot - linked below]

Fiction
At HiLobrow: "The Devolutionist - part 17" by Homer Eon Flint. Occult-Science-Fiction. (1921) "“You may as well make your apologies now, Powart; you’re out of it! I’ve
won, and you’ve lost! I’ve done a bigger thing than you have!”"

• At Paizo: "A Matter of Knives - Chapter Two: When Someone Wants You Dead" by Ed Greenwood. Fantasy. "Tantaerra cursed foully, then cursed even harder
as she felt swords biting into the far sides of the crates she was now
clinging to. The manyswords thing was hacking and hewing crates as high
as it could reach, cleaving wood that was a lot older and damper than
the lid it had just flung aside; its blades were through one crate-side
already."

• At Tor.com: "Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom" by Micaela Morrissette. "In a possible far future animals have taken over and democratized the world where humans once ruled. Tim, a lonely slime mold, is worried about his human pet Mimi and her recent animal urges. He only wants her to be happy, but he doesn’t know how to keep her from sneaking out and cavorting with the human pet next door or any number of feral humans in the neighborhood. But through his relationship with her, he learns what it truly means to make a commitment to someone else."

• "Cold, Cold War" by Ian McHugh. Fantasy.
"Masaru peered past the struts and wires between his biplane's wings, trying to take the sight in. The tower's base was a madman's helter-skelter ziggurat, made of impossible stone blocks the size of townhouses, that cut a swath across the city's snow-covered grid of tenement blocks and terraces. From the ziggurat’s peak, the ragged-toothed tower reached up to a dark stain of cloud fixed in the sky directly above."
• "A Sixpenny Crossing" by Don Allmon. Fantasy. "'Stolen,' the General hissed. 'Stolen!' he shouted, enraged. 'It was Easric Dane, I know it! Upon my soul, it must have been he!' Not only was it awful, but Pearl couldn't possibly be suggesting there was any truth to it. Earsic thought of drowning the book in the river. But Pearl Snow had a wicked pack of cards. They brooked none of Easric's sass and weren't lightly ignored"

Audio Fiction
• At Beneath Ceaseless Skies: "The Penitent" by M. Bennardo. Fantasy "No. 17596 let the book fall out of his hands. It would tell him what? It would tell him that the world went on—that somewhere, out there, men and women were carrying on their affairs while he sat alone in his cell, sentenced to ruminate in silence and isolation."

• At The Fantastic Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs: "Episode 08 - The Land That Time Forgot" "The German crew of the U-33 have managed to refine the oil that has been discovered near the camp. They pilot the U-33 downstream back toward the outlet to the sea – shelling the camp along the way. In the meantime, Lys has disappeared from the camp – with anthropoid footprints indicating she has been abducted by Caspak’s native ape creatures."